Hale & Hearty Christmas - Celebrate Your Day With Flavours & Health!

Christmas is a challenging time to embrace healthy foods when you see all the tempting food advertised and marketed throughout the week. Christmas is recognised as a celebratory affair – it certainly shouldn’t be a time to feel guilty about enjoying yummy Christmas food! Well, a walk on such food during Christmas wouldn’t do any harm to burn off those calories.

However, it is still possible to cook Christmas treats that are healthy as well delicious. It is just the way they are being prepared, cooked and served - often loaded with fats such as salt and butter. And this is where the nutritional value can be depleted. Consider adopting the following healthy food recipes and party tips this festive season.

1. Spinach Balls
This appetizer allows you to incorporate some vegetables into your Christmas feast. Made using spinach, eggs, grated cheese, panko crumbs, fresh herbs and garlic salt rolled into balls kept in a freezer for a while before baking and serving them as an appetizer for your meal.

Ingredients

• 1 Bowl of spinach
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 2 tbsp green onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika

Preparation

• Chop the dried spinach leaves.
• Add all the ingredients together in a large bowl and mix well.
• Form it into balls, squeezing tightly.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes, turning once.

2. Vegetable platter with dip

Ingredients for the dip 

• 1 cup plain non-fat yogurt.
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh dill leaves.
• 1 tsp garlic powder.
• 1 tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp ground white pepper.
• 4 tsp white vinegar.

Ingredients for vegetable platter 

• 8 cups broccoli 
• 3 cups sprouts
• 2 cups green beans
• 1 cup cauliflower
• 1 cup peas
• 2 cups cauliflower
• 9 cherry tomatoes

Preparation 

• Boil water in a saucepan and keep a separate large bowl of cold water aside.
• Blanch broccoli, beans, sprouts peas and cauliflower for 1 to 2 minutes and drain well.
• Transfer only broccoli to cold water, to retain its crunchiness and drain well.

For the dip 

• Whisk yogurt, dill, vinegar, garlic powder, sugar, salt and pepper in a bowl.
• You can replace dill leaves with fresh coriander or cilantro.
• Garnish it with herbs of your choice.

Serve

In a larger serving tray arrange the dip in the center and arrange the blanched vegetables around it and garnish it with cherry tomatoes.

Apart from these two easy to cook dishes there a number of other healthy dishes one can easily prepare for Christmas, such as:

1. Quinoa Stuffing
2. Roasted Lamb with blackberry chutney
3. Rosemary garlic marinated vegetables 
4. Lemon and fennel rubbed turkey or chicken
5. Lemony brussels sprout salad
6. 20 Minute Cauliflower soup 

Reduce your holiday stress while pleasing your Christmas party guests with the following baking tips and tricks.

• Use mistletoe and snowflakes stamps and add a sophisticated design to the Christmas sugar cookies.
• Use cookie cutters to mold fudge into festive shapes like Christmas trees and snowmen.
• Create chocolate curls using a potato peeler making pretty garnish for cakes and cupcakes.
• Use frozen cranberries to add flavor to your drinks while adding a pop of festive color to your table decor.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!